1. Field
One embodiment of the invention relates to an image display control technique for a user interface so as to enable a user to efficiently select a reproduction start position of video content data.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, an electronic apparatus such as a video recorder or a personal computer may record and reproduce a variety of items of video content data, such as television broadcasting program data. In this case, while a title name is attached to each piece of the video content data stored in the electronic apparatus, it is hard for a user to recognize the content of each item of the video content data merely by the title name. Therefore, it becomes necessary for recognizing the content of the video content data to reproduce the video content data. However, it takes a long time to reproduce video content data with a long total time length even if a fast-forward function is utilized.
An apparatus with a function of displaying a list of characters is disclosed in Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2001-309269. This apparatus has a function of displaying images of each face of the characters in video content side by side with one another as a list of the characters in the video content.
Meanwhile, in a case of display of the images of the faces side by side, it is preferable for the images of the faces to make positions and sizes in the images as well as display sizes even. It is needed for making them even to appropriately decide cutout ranges of face areas from the original images.
However, if the apparatus intends to decide the cutout ranges of the face areas from the original images by taking to make the positions or sizes of the faces equal to other face images into account, namely by taking to make the positions or sizes of the faces in the images constant into account, for example, in a case where the face area is positioned at an end part of the original image, the apparatus has to decide the cutout area which protrudes the original image. Therefore, it is required to develop a mechanism to appropriately adjust the decision in such a case.